until
new crops come in, much to aid our provisions, unless by going
some distance into the country. Therefore I think it
indispensably necessary, in order to keep the settlers to their
farming improvements, to continue their rations longer than I at
first intended; as I consider the present too important a crisis
to leave them to neglect their improvements, although it may add
something to our present expenses.

The people at Caldwell are getting on better with their farms
than with their houses. I think some of them are very slow,
notwithstanding I have assisted them in building. The Gun House
at Caldwell is done, and at present preparations are making for
the fourth of July. I think that settlement generally, is rapidly
advancing in farming, building, and I hope, in industry. Our gun
carriages are done; the completion of the iron work alone
prevents us from mounting them all immediately. We have four
mounted, and I think we shall put them all in complete order by
the end of the present week.

Captain Russel will be able to give something like a fair account
of the state of our improvements, as he went with me to visit the
settlements on the 13th and 14th, and seemed pleased with the
project at Millsburg, Caldwell and the Half-way Farms.

Mr. Warner, who has been engaged nearly the whole of the last
twelve months on business of negotiation with the native tribes
to the leeward, is at present down at Tippicanoe, the place which
I mentioned in my former communications, as being a very
important section of country, since it would connect our Sesters
and Bassa districts together. He is not, however, now engaged in
business of negotiation, but only in business of trade.

Gurley, _Life of Jehudi Ashmun_, appendix, pp. 153-156.

In a letter to Mr. Ashmun, Mr. Cary wrote:

Things are nearly as you left them; most of the work that you
directed to be done, is nearly accomplished. The plasterers are
now at work on the Government House, and with what lime I am
having brought down the river, and what shells I am getting, I
think we shall succeed.

The Gun House in Monrovia and the Jail have been done for some
weeks; the mounting of the guns will be done this week, if the
weather permits.

The Houses at Half-way Farms are done; the Gun